The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party is now declaring Rick Santorum the winner of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses. In a written statement released this morning along with the final “certified” Caucus results, Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn congratulated both Santorum and Mitt Romney, but did not refer to Santorum as the winner.
“I am clarifying for anyone that didn’t understand the statement that was put out by the party this morning,” Strawn said this afternoon.
Strawn yesterday told a reporter for The Des Moines Register that he “couldn’t speculate” as to who won the Caucuses. In this morning’s written statement, Strawn called the race “the closest contest in caucus history” and stressed that the goal of party leaders was to “accurately” report the vote totals.
“We thought the numbers spoke for themselves,” Strawn said.
The numbers showed Santorum finished 34 votes ahead of Romney, but the “certified” vote totals from eight precincts were not included in the tally and will never be reported. The proper forms from those precincts were not submitted to party headquarters by Wednesday’s deadline.
“I want to complement the efforts of my staff and the thousands of volunteers that did a great job helping the Iowa Caucuses run and you have to remember it is an entirely volunteer-driven activity,” Strawn said. “We have done everything in our power to try and get every precinct to comply with the 14-day certification period and there were eight that, you know, weren’t able to.”
Strawn said some precinct captains told the party they lost the proper forms. A couple failed to respond to calls from party headquarters, according to Strawn.
“But I will tell you that the party going into this caucus season did four times the amount of county trainings that had been done prior,” Strawn said. “Any county, irrespective of size or geographic location, that requested a training, we sent a member of our five-person staff there to conduct that training and walk them through the responsibilities of being a county leader or a precinct chair and to an overwhelming degree, you know, Iowans responded.”
Strawn also pointed to the record turn-out and the fact that only eight out of 1774 precincts failed to be counted.
“I don’t want the efforts of thousands of Iowa Republicans to be tarnished by a few precincts that did not comply with the requirements,” Strawn said.
According to Strawn, Santorum’s finish is evidence that it doesn’t require the biggest campaign account to win Iowa’s Caucuses.